Long ago, at Hylton Hall, near Sunderland, there lived a mischievous brownie whom the servants called the 'Cauld Lad', because he wore no clothes and Hylton Hall was a cold kind of place in those days. This little fellow had a habit of turning the day's work upside down after everyone had gone to bed. The chairs and tables would be thrown on their backs and sides, and the dishes would be taken from the cupboards and strewn about the kitchen along with most of the cutlery. Food would be taken from the pantry and liberally spread around the place. (Especially the flour, for the Cauld Lad liked nothing better than to see clouds of this white powder cascading through the air.) If the ashes from the fire-place were still warm, he liked to rake them out, spread them over the hearth mat and lie on them .
But sometimes, just when the scullery maids could stand no more of the brownie's pranks, they would come into the kitchen and find the place spic and span, even things that they had left unfinished were tidied up and put in their proper places! So contrary was this faerie that they never knew what to expect next.
One night, near Christmas, the cook and her husband were returning from an evening out, and it was very late, so they entered the hall very quietly so as not to disturb those already asleep. As they crept past the darkened kitchen, they noticed a strange light coming from under the door, and, as they went to check what it was, they heard a small voice, singing:
The cook pushed the door until it was slightly ajar, and peered into the kitchen. There, sitting on the edge of the table, and swinging his legs over the side, sat the brownie. He looked a forlorn little thing, wearing such a frown as might suit a child who is tired and refuses to walk any farther. He was about as high as a milking stool, and his skin was brown as you might expect, but it was covered in fine hair, so that he had the warm looks of a rabbit, though he was far too thin to be mistaken for one! His eyes were big as horse-chestnuts and their colour almost the same, and the cook and her husband smiled with delight when they saw his pointed little ears!
But at that moment he heard a tiny noise from them, and he was gone in a flash.
"Where did he go?" asked the astonished cook. Her husband did not know, but they suspected that they had scared the little fellow off, and that he would not return that night, so they took themselves off to bed.
The next day the downstairs parlour was full of talk of the Cauld Lad, for this was the first time that any of the servants had actually seen the brownie. The cook told everybody said what a cute little chap he was, and those who had not seen him were very disappointed indeed. Then the gardener suddenly said :
"You know, when I was a boy my father told me that brownie was under a spell." The others immediately wanted to know more and the gardener went on to tell them that the Cauld Lad had been always been mischievous and had once angered the Faerie king who placed the brownie under a spell which made him stay at Hylton Hall, and though he would much rather be with his own kind, in a place of which men know nothing, he must stay until such a time as someone released him from the spell. That, he told them, was the reason that he caused such a mess about the place, in the hopes that someone would banish him forever.
"Just how would we go about this spell-breaking?" asked cook, who had become most distressed at hearing the story.
"If I remember right," the gardener replied, "He has to be offered a gift of something which is not perishable, and if he accepts it, we'll see him no more."
This made the cook sad to think he would be gone forever, but she decided that it was the best thing to do for the brownie himself. So she set about making him a cloak and a hood, which he would be proud to show off once he reached the land of his own people. All that evening, she toiled away sewing and cutting and stitching until at last she had the finest hooded cloak that it was possible to create. It was of the smoothest silk, and lined with shimmering satin. Her husband told her that it was a wonderful gift that she had made for the Cauld Lad.
Late that night, they laid the cloak upon the kitchen table, and then hid themselves in a root-cellar at the far end of the room, where they could watch without being seen. Quietly they waited, as the hall clock ticked away the minutes, and chimed away the hours. At last, the dim light that they had seen before now glowed near the table, and as they strained their eyes to see, they could make out the shape of the Cauld Lad as he went immediately to the place where the cloak lay. He looked at it with the suspicion at first, then, on picking it up and holding it out, he saw that it was his size and must be meant as a present. His eyes lit up and an enormous smile stretched over his face from ear to ear! The cook and her husband were smiling too, but this time they were sure to make no noise in case they were to frighten the brownie away again. Carefully, the little faerie pulled the cloak across his shoulders and tied the draw cord around the neck. How splendid he did look! He skipped around the table-top and sang with delight:
And with that, he jumped in the air, snapped his fingers and disappeared ... and has never been seen or heard from that day to this!
